Category Archives: Philosophy

Due to some unknown genetic abnormality, I often wax philosophical. There’s no logical reason for this. I didn’t study much philosophy in college, nor have I read unusually tall stacks of philosophical works. I do, however, like to look at situations from a detached standpoint and write about what I see. This category is a collection of messages/posts, notes to myself, and the occasional attempt (usually failed attempt) at poetry.

While there are many factors that can drive the process of selecting your first motorcycle, the ultimate selection is often driven by your heart rather than your head. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been pining away for years over a specific bike or you find yourself gobsmacked with lust over some newly-announced model.

The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of… –Blaise Pascal

For most people, the heart vs head battle gets inverted by the time it’s time to buy a second (or third, or fourteenth) motorcycle. The more your ride, the more you learn about how you like to ride and what you like, love, and loathe about one bike versus another. Continue reading Head vs Heart: Selecting Your Next Motorcycle→

No, this probably isn’t about what you think it’s about. This piece has nothing to do with prostitutes (male or female). It doesn’t discuss the finer points of pimping for your partner in the big city. It also doesn’t define the level of financial outlay (dinners, gifts, flowers, etc.) necessary to get the object of your desire to go to bed with you. This piece outlines the different ways that couples justify (i.e., pay for) the sex in their relationship.Continue reading Paying for Sex in a Relationship: Cash or Credit?→

A number of people have mentioned their reluctance to email me with comments because I might critique or otherwise “tear apart” the prose in their messages. Don’t worry, I’m not that anal retentive about writing. Back in college, I wrote a short piece which was published in the October 1987 issue of Communique. The piece dealt with writing to the level of your purpose. The remainder of this post is the article.Continue reading Writing: Good vs. Good Enough→

A funny thing happened on the way back into divorce-induced bachelorhood. Having been married for almost a decade, I figured that I would be better prepared for the socializing/dating rat race because of my extensive knowledge of at least one female’s habits. It didn’t take long to discover that I am still totally clueless.Continue reading What is More?→

While my ex-wife and I were in the process of getting a divorce, I eventually gathered the nerve to tell my grandmother about our impending demise. Grandma (my only surviving grandparent) lost her husband to an aneurysm back in the early sixties, and never re-married. She’s a traditional white-haired, German grandmother, and does not appreciate the typical reasons for divorce. She felt a whole lot better when she found out that the divorce wasn’t my idea (my ex-wife will burn in hell, not me). After a few hours of conversation, she said something that took me by surprise.

During the 1997 Sunrun, Ivan Gregory and I shared a harrowing ride through Bear Tooth Pass (still migrating that story to the blog) and lived to talk about it. Later that year, I learned that my invincible riding partner had been t-boned by a cager and was in the hospital. When I first learned of the accident, it seriously bummed me out. I wrote the following haiku that afternoon:

Dark mountain riders
Thwarting cliffs of death like gods
Now struck down like men

I call my bike Cruiser. Keep in mind that my definition of cruising does not involve repeatedly traveling the same 14 blocks of road with the adolescents of the community.

That begs elaboration. . . .

A Cruise (capitalized out of respect) is an escape. It can be 30 minutes or 30 days and absolutely, positively, requires no destination. It is an opportunity to enjoy the outdoors and commune with a well-tuned mass of metallic kinetic energy and perhaps a beloved warm body as well. A Cruise is an expression of independence, staking everything on the durability of the machine and quality of your wits. It’s a quest for adventure, daring fate to put something interesting around the next bend. A Cruise is never boring; it’s a raw undiluted experience with no roof, no airbag, and no climate control. A Cruise is isolation, without visiting a deserted island. It’s meditation, with the drone of the motor serving as a mantra. It gives us the energy to endure our day-to-day lives . . . until the next Cruise . . .